Impact (1-10): How much this matters if it succeeds.
Effort (1-10): How hard it is to execute (higher = harder).
Confidence (1-10): How sure we are this is the right bet.
Leverage = Impact x Confidence / Effort

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Why: The graduated trust proposal maps directly to Seeds contacts primitive. Writing a formal protocol spec extending contacts with scoped attestations, expiration, revocability, and reputation weight turns a speculative article into an implementable standard.

Impact: 10

Effort: 5

Confidence: 9

Leverage: 18.0

Next action: Draft a Seed RFC extending the contacts resource with scope, expiration, and revocable fields; define hop-calculation algorithm

Links: Graduated Trust

Why: The maintainer crisis is acute and getting worse. A tool that computes trust distance and gates PRs based on contributor proximity to the project solves an immediate pain point.

Impact: 9

Effort: 7

Confidence: 8

Leverage: 10.3

Depends on: Scoped contact/vouch format (Opportunity #1), hop-calculation algorithm

Next action: Define minimum viable friction at each hop; prototype hop-distance computation from GitHub social graph

Why: The graduated trust article is well-developed but hasnt been syndicated or pitched. A high-signal talk at a major OSS or security conference would build authority and attract collaborators.

Impact: 7

Effort: 4

Confidence: 8

Leverage: 14.0

Next action: Identify fall 2026 CFP deadlines; draft talk abstract

Why: Proof of context - automatically generated questions from codebase history that contributors must answer - is the most novel and least explored mechanism in the graduated trust proposal.

Impact: 6

Effort: 6

Confidence: 6

Leverage: 6.0

Next action: Prototype question generation from commit messages plus diff context for a small repo

Why: A simple web page where Seed account holders can issue scoped vouches to other Seed accounts, visible on the Seed profile. Makes the abstract concept concrete.

Impact: 5

Effort: 3

Confidence: 7

Leverage: 11.7

Next action: Design the vouch UX (scope picker, expiration selector, publish as contact on Seed)

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Trust as the scarce resource in the AI era - appears in graduated trust, remodeling the web, vibe code post

Seed primitives as infrastructure, not just publishing - contacts, capabilities, documents as building blocks for trust mechanisms

Maintainer burnout as market signal - the slop PR problem is documented, urgent, and underserved

Cross-domain applicability - the trust graph solution for OSS generalizes to journalism, peer review, community moderation